In this recent post I reproduced a memorandum written by my great great grandfather William Robb (1813- 1888), in which he recorded details of his parents’ families. The memorandum ended with this tantalising sentence:

My mother Margaret Ricketts Monteith was the only daughter of John Monteith and Matilda his wife who was the daughter of Viscount Stormont who was engaged as well as my Father’s father in the affair of Prince Charles’ attempt to gain the crown 1745/6.

I have searched in vain for any independent confirmation of these striking claims. I have been unable to find a source, at Scotland’s People or elsewhere, for the birth of a Margaret Monteith around 1782 (Margaret died in 1843 at the age of 61). Nor have I found any record of a marriage between a John Monteith and Matilda, which presumably would have taken place before about 1781, and at the earliest around 1750.

Finally, none of the Viscounts Stormont who were alive around this time appear to have had a daughter named Matilda. It’s seems unlikely that William would have got his maternal grandmother’s name wrong, since it was clearly a name that was passed on through the family: his older sister, born in 1805, bore the same name, as did one of his own daughters.

On the other hand, William wrote the memorandum when he was about 67, a few years before his death, and he would have been remembering information told to him by his mother and father, who had died some 27 and 37 years before respectively. Certainly, some of the other details in his memorandum are open to question. For example, he claims that his uncle, Rev.William Robb, was professor of Greek at the college of St.Andrews. Again, I’ve not seen this mentioned in any of the records relating to Rev. William, and it seems an odd fact to single out, while neglecting to mention his incumbency at St Andrews, his chaplaincy to Lord Elibank, or his poetry. Then there are the slight errors in the reference to Rev William’s death, which is said to have happened around 1838, when in fact it occurred in 1830, and the reference to Bishop Law as ‘Prime’ (= Primo) of Scotland, a position he never held. Was my great great grandfather selecting facts to achieve a certain effect? Or perhaps he misremembered certain details of what his parents told him so many years earlier?

The other vital piece of information that I’ve been unable to confirm is the marriage of my 3 x great grandparents, Charles Edward Stuart Robb and Margaret Ricketts Monteith. It’s claimed that this happened in October 1802 at St. Mungo’s, Glasgow, which I think was Church of Scotland (?) However, Charles and Margaret had their first child, Matilda, baptised at St. Paul’s Episcopal Chapel in Aberdeen. This Episcopalian connection may provide a clue as to why records of Margaret’s birth and her parents’ marriage are missing from the predominantly Presbyterian Old Parish Registers.

Scone Castle, historic home of the Viscounts Stormont

On the other hand, the connection to Viscount Stormont seems an unlikely fact to have got completely wrong. If Margaret Monteith was born around 1780, then it’s likely that her mother Matilda was born sometime between 1740 and 1760. If Matilda’s father really was Viscount Stormont, the most promising candidate is the 6th viscount, David Murray, who lived from 1690 to 1748, inheriting the title in 1731. What’s more, he was known for his Jacobite sympathies, and would have been alive at the time of the ’45. If Matilda was his daughter, then she would need to have been born before or shortly after he died (meaning that she would have been at least in her early thirties when her daughter Margaret was born).

However, the records I’ve seen claim that the 6th viscount, who married Anne Murray in 1726, had two sons and two daughters – Anne, who died unmarried in 1818, and Margery, who died in 1799.

The 5th Viscount Stormont married Marjory Scott in 1688 and they had the following children:

Once again, no sign of a Matilda, and anyway, the dates are far too early.

As for the 7th Viscount, who lived from 1748 to 1793, the dates are too late, and in any case he was a loyal minister of the Hanoverian court, not a Jacobite. His children were Elizabeth, Caroline, David, Charles, George and Henry.

There is obviously some connection with the aristocratic Murray family. My 3 x great grandfather’s brother, Rev William Robb, was chaplain to Lord Elibank, himself a Murray, though I’m not quite sure of his precise relationship to the Stormont branch.

Perhaps William got confused: maybe his grandmother was a Matilda Murray, but her relationship to the Stormont branch of the family was less direct?

If anyone can help with this longstanding family mystery, I’d be extremely grateful. I’d also welcome comments or suggestions from anyone with information about a John Monteith marrying a Matilda (Murray), probably in the Glasgow area, in the mid-18th century, as well as anyone who can help me out with the Ricketts connection.

3 Responses to Was my 5 x great grandfather a viscount?

Earlier today while following a thread on Murrays of Cockpool (our own ancestry) on the British (person) peerage website, I noted that the 3rd Viscount Stormont (I think it was 3rd), married to Frederica (can’t remember her surname) had three daughters described as name unknown – I believe it had dates. Hope that’s helpful

On page 138 of ‘A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire Vol II’ (two) on the internet you would find the following :-
David, sixth Viscount Stormont who m(arried) in 1723, Anne only daughter and heiress of John Stewart esq. of Innernytie (sic), by whom he had David, his successor with another son and two daughters. His lordship d(ied) in 1748 and was s(ucceeded) by his eldest son.
His son, the 7th Viscount married first, in 1759 Henrietta Fredriika Burnau……
Their daughter, Elizabeth Mary, (Frederika died while Lady Elizabeth was only a very young child) was half cousin to ‘Dido’ Elizabeth Murray, from whose mother Maria Elizabeth Belle of Havana, Cuba we are directly descended (very recently proved by dna). Both these young ladies are well represented on the internet with much info & an actual painting.
This is a segment of history that I have come to know better as it affects my own researches.
Firstly I found that we are descended from a so-called ‘natural’ son (later recognised and legitimised but, of course, naturally without hereditary rights !) of Sir James Murray of Cockpool, the grandfather of the 6th Viscount. The current legit descendant Earl of Mansfield is one of the richest men in the land.
I’ve proved this line of descent by dna, which should be comparable to your own dna trace, which will prove your connection.
This can be easily done on :-
Murray Clan DNA Research Project FTDNAhttp://www.familytreedna.com/public/murray/
The legit clan family (naturally) wouldn’t stoop to submit their dna, but when I submitted my dna a couple of years back to the general Family Tree dna Website, I was contacted by Alexandrina Murray from Perth who also had a ‘paper and headstone trail’ leading back to the 1100s and beyond, so, based on the interrelation of our combined evidence, we were able to set up the Murray Clan DNA Research Project (one of many family tree research projects within the FTDNA website) and it has been quite successfully gathering numbers of other descendants.
Alexandrina and myself are currently co-administrators, although occasional health problems have limited my own input.
If one of those two daughters was your ancestor, which after 40 years of my own experiences of family history researching would be quite probable, since, however unlikely, these passed down items of historical information are often absolutely spot-on. That would make us distantly related.
Unfortunately my grandfather’s parents both died when he was 8 years old, of one of those 1890s flu epidemics, so we had no passed down family tales to go on.
The Cockpool Murrays trace back to the knights who were loyal to and fought with William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.
Then with other trustworthy knights, King Robert I (the Bruce) gave them lands along the borders and Solway shore to defend Scotland. The Cockpool Murrays were granted lands around Ruthwell, near Dumfries, where they built a castle, Comlongon Castle, which is still standing in good shape and open to the public.
Let me know how you get on with your research.
Happy hunting,
Jim Murray.